A state of pain

Sunday

Sep 22, 2013 at 12:01 AM

With all the economic problems Rhode Island has, see if this story doesn’t make your blood boil:Over the past few years, Pentec Health, a private company, provided an invaluable home-care service to a...

With all the economic problems Rhode Island has, see if this story doesn’t make your blood boil:

Over the past few years, Pentec Health, a private company, provided an invaluable home-care service to a handful of Rhode Islanders. Based in Philadelphia, Pentec dispatches nurses to patients’ homes to fill pumps implanted in their bodies. Typically, the pumps dispense medicine to control pain or muscle spasms.

The service can be a godsend for people impaired by such crippling diseases as multiple sclerosis, or who are in the final stages of fatal illness. Currently, Pentec serves 28 states, including Massachusetts. But it ran into such bureaucratic obstacles in Rhode Island that it recently withdrew its request for licensure, meaning it will not do business here.

As movingly chronicled in an Aug. 25 Commentary piece by Journal staff writer Tracy Breton, Pentec’s withdrawal left some of Rhode Island’s most vulnerable residents in desperate straits. Among them is Bea Burns, of Wakefield, whose MS is so advanced she must be transported by stretcher to Rhode Island Hospital. There, her pump is refilled.

Such an ordeal is as needless as it is shocking. In response, state Rep. Joseph McNamara has called for hearings before the House Committee on Health, Education & Welfare. Tentatively scheduled for late October, the hearings cannot come too soon.

The state Health Department should be asked such questions as why it demanded that Pentec open an office in Rhode Island, even when one was not needed; and why, after three hearings, it kept Pentec hanging for seven long months.

Surely, even though such companies need to be regulated, Rhode Island can do better dealing with businesses than this, especially in the burgeoning medical field. As it was, the department “made us feel like criminals,” said Pentec general manager and executive vice president Michael Abens. Any state that wants to attract business should not make reputable companies feel that way.

Before deciding to withdraw, Pentec had been assisting Rhode Islanders at the request of their doctors. Something, obviously, has gone wrong. The state should strive for a reasonable balance between licensing requirements and compassionate care. In this case, that balance appears to have been egregiously lacking.